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N.J. bear hunt will resume next year - and perhaps beyond, officials say

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Nick Bockbrader of Allamuchy poses with the 520-pound bear he tracked and killed Friday morning. The bear had been killing orphaned fawns he had rescued, Bockbrader says. Hunters will again resume their positions next year on Dec. 8, 2014 - the last year in the state's five-year management plan.
(Courtesy of Nick Bockbrader)

The bear would emerge from the swamps at night, climb a ridge to the Allamuchy farm, sneak up to a fawn, kill it and leave the half-eaten body behind.

In five years, that 520-pound bear killed the orphaned fawns Nick Bockbrader adopted and nursed to adulthood on his property. Chickens were disappearing, too. So Bockbrader tracked through his woods this week, and on Friday morning he killed the bear with a single 12-gauge slug in the animal’s neck.

“This bear had figured out the fawns were an easy meal,” Bockbrader said. “When you live in bear country, you love to see them – but it reaches a point where enough’s enough.”

Bockbrader and other bear hunters will be given a chance next year, and perhaps beyond, to thin the bruin population that’s exploded in New Jersey during the past several decades, officials said.

Bear hunters will pick up their muzzleloaders and shotguns over six days starting Dec. 8, 2014, said Larry Herrighty, the assistant director of the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife.

The next hunt will be the last in the state’s five-year management plan for bears, Herrighty said. After that, the population and the results from the five years will be analyzed and biologists will decide whether to keep the hunt, expand it, or eliminate it, officials said.

But state officials have said that New Jersey is practically overrun with bears – and that the current population should be halved.

The hunts have driven down the population of 3,400 estimated before the 2010 hunt to the 2,500 to 2,800 estimated before this year’s hunt. But the Garden State has North America’s densest bear population – and the best concentration would be 1,200 to 1,500 bears, David Chanda, director of Fish and Wildlife, said during last year’s hunt.

This year’s hunt totals in the northwestern part of the state were similar to last year’s. Heading into a snow-filled sixth day of this year's hunt from Dec. 9 to 14, the kill total stood at 235 – almost on track for the 287 “harvest” during last year’s hunt. Both totals are far short of the hunt totals in 2010 and 2011, when 569 and 469 bears were killed, respectively.

The hunter participation and success rate have decreased, as expected with hunts, Herrighty said. Also, the naïve bears who were easily taken have already been taken by hunters in the first few hunts – and now it’s more challenging to kill the remaining bears, he said.

Legal challenges to the hunt no longer exist, since a state Appellate Court in 2011 dismissed opposition to the hunt. Organizations such as the Bear Education and Resource group and the Animal Protection League of New Jersey have protested outside one of the check stations for the bear carcasses over several days during this year’s hunt. The groups also contends that legislation requiring bear-proof garbage containers would solve the population problem. That legislation is before a state Senate subcommittee, and some biologists have contended it wouldn’t be enough to curb the bruin population.

In the meantime, hunters will take to the woods to help reduce the population. Bockbrader said he was part of a hunting group of six people in the area. Five harvested bears – including his own 520-pound bruin from the swamps on his farm, he said.

“Instead of waiting for the bear to come to us, we went to it,” Bockbrader said.

NEW JERSEY BEAR HUNT 2012 LIVE MAP

This year, NJ.com is tracking how many bears are killed in this year’s bear hunt. Come back at every morning this week as we add the newest numbers from NJDEP.
Map by Carla Astudillo